A PIL seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute GST Tribunal has been filed in the Supreme Court. The PIL, filed by lawyer and activist Amit Sahni, said in 2016, the GST Bill was passed in both the houses of the Parliament and from 1st July the Central Goods and Services Act, 2017 came into force. Section 109 of the Act mandates the constitution of a GST Appellate Tribunal which is not constituted even after 4 years of the Act being into existence.
“The constitution of National and other Benches of Appellate Tribunal under section 109 of the CGST Act, 2017 is an absolute necessity of the hour and the Respondents cannot drag its constitution for an indefinite period”, the plea said.
The plea, filed on July 12, also referred to a legal maxim Justice Delayed is Justice Denied and in absence of an Appellate Tribunal, the litigants are not able to get justice within a reasonable period and the same is causing extreme hardship to the litigants across the Country.
The plea, filed through lawyer Preeti Singh, said that soon after demonetisation (in November 2016), which adversely affected business of common man, the Respondents have hurriedly implemented GST on one hand while on the contrary it has deliberately not constituted the GST Tribunal as provided under the Act.
Further, the GST was introduced with the objectives to simplify the taxation laws in India by subsuming multiple tax laws at different central and state levels into a single one and to lessen the burden of payment of multiple taxes from the shoulder of common citizens.
“Any person aggrieved by the order passed by the Appellate Authority under section 107 or by the Revisional Authority under section 108 may appeal to the Appellate Tribunal under section 112 within three months of passing such order.” it said.
Activist-Lawyer Amit Sahni had earlier made a representation to the Ministry of Finance and GST Council requesting that appropriate and expeditious steps must be taken in order to constitute the Appellate Tribunal as mandated under Section 109 of the Central Goods and Services Act, 2017 to avoid huge backlog of cases and also to lessen the misery of poor litigants but “no steps have been taken to constitute either the National Bench or other Benches and consequently, appellate process is pending in many cases arising against the orders/directions passed by the appellate authority on the ground of absence of any appellate tribunal and thus defying the very objectives of introducing the GST Act,” the plea said.
